The pages clanged apart.
‘Right, let’s see …’ It scanned the newly revealed text. ‘Done that … done that … oh …’ It stopped and turned a pale face to Mrs War.
‘Oh, boy,’ it said, ‘we’re in trouble now.’
A comet sprang up from the world below, growing visibly larger as the angel spoke. It flamed across the sky, burning fragments detaching and dropping away and revealing, as it closed with the Horsemen, a chariot on fire.
It was a blue flame. Chaos burned with cold.
The figure standing in the chariot wore a full-face helmet dominated by two eye holes that looked slightly like the wings of a butterfly and rather more like the eyes of some strange, alien creature. The burning horse, barely sweating, trotted to a halt; the other horses, regardless of their riders, moved aside to make room.
‘Oh, no,’ said Famine, waving a hand in disgust. ‘Not him, too? I said what’d happen if he came back, didn’t I? Remember that time he threw the minstrel out of the hotel window in Zok? Didn’t I say—’
SHUT UP, said Death. He nodded. HELLO, RONNIE. GOOD TO SEE YOU. I WONDERED IF YOU WOULD COME.
A hand trailing cold steam came up and removed the helmet.
‘Hello, boys,’ said Chaos pleasantly.
‘Uh … long time no see,’ said Pestilence.
War coughed. ‘Heard you were doing well,’ he said.
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Ronnie, in a careful tone of voice. ‘There’s a real future in the retail milk and milk derivatives business.’
Death glanced at the Auditors. They’d stopped moving in but were circling, watchfully.
‘Well, the world will always need cheese,’ said War desperately. ‘Haha.’
‘Looks like there’s some trouble here,’ said Ronnie.
‘We can handl—’ Famine began.
WE CAN’T, said Death. YOU CAN SEE HOW IT IS, RONNIE. TIMES HAVE CHANGED. WOULD YOU CARE TO SIT IN FOR THIS ONE?
‘Hey, we haven’t discussed—’ Famine began, but stopped when War glared at him.
Ronnie Soak put on his helmet, and Chaos drew his sword. It glinted and, like the glass clock, looked like the intrusion into the world of something a great deal more complex.
‘Some old man told me you live and learn,’ he said. ‘Well. I have lived, and now I’ve learned that the edge of a sword is infinitely long. I’ve also learned how to make damn good yoghurt, although this is not a skill I intend to employ today. Shall we go get ’em, boys?’
Far down, in the street, a few of the Auditors moved forward.
‘What is Rule One?’ said one of them.
‘It does not matter. I am Rule One!’ An Auditor with a big axe waved them back. ‘Obedience is necessary!’
The Auditors wavered, watching the cleaver. They’d learned about pain. They’d never felt pain before, not in billions of years. Those who had felt it had no desire at all to feel it again.
‘Very well,’ said Mr White. ‘Now get back to—’
A chocolate egg spun out of nowhere and smashed on the stones. The crowd of Auditors rippled forward, but Mr White slashed the axe through the air a few times.
‘Stand back! Stand back!’ he screamed. ‘You three! Find out who threw that! It came from behind that stall! No-one is to touch the brown material!’
He stooped carefully and picked up a large fragment of chocolate, on which could just be made out the shape of a smiling duck in yellow icing. Hand shaking and sweat beading his forehead, he raised it aloft and flourished the cleaver triumphantly. There was a collective sigh from the crowd.
‘You see?’ he shouted. ‘The body can be overcome! You see? We can find a way to live! If you are good, there may be brown material! If you disobey, there will be the sharp edge! Ah …’ He lowered his arms as a struggling Unity was dragged towards him.
‘The pathfinder,’ he said, ‘the renegade …’
He walked towards the captive. ‘What will it be?’ he said. ‘The cleaver or the brown material?’
‘It’s called chocolate,’ snapped Unity. ‘I do not eat it.’
‘We shall see,’ Mr White said. ‘Your associate seemed to prefer the axe!’
He pointed to the body of Lu-Tze.
To the empty patch of cobbles where Lu-Tze had been.
A hand tapped him on the shoulder.
‘Why is it,’ said a voice by his ear, ‘that no-one ever believes in Rule One?’
Above him the sky began to burn blue.
Susan sped up the street to the clock shop.
She glanced sideways, and Lobsang was there, running beside her. He looked … human, except that not many humans had a blue glow around them.
‘There will be grey men around the clock!’ he shouted.
‘Trying to find what makes it tick?’
‘Hah! Yes!’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Smash it!’
‘That’ll destroy history!’
‘So?’
He reached out and took her hand. She felt a shock run up her arm.
‘You won’t need to open the door! You won’t need to stop! Head straight for the clock!’ he said.
‘But—’
‘Don’t talk to me! I’ve got to remember!’
‘Remember what?’
‘Everything!’
Mr White was already raising the axe as he turned round. But you just can’t trust a body. It thinks for itself. When it is surprised, it does a number of things even before the brain has been informed.
The mouth opens, for example.
‘Ah, good,’ said Lu-Tze, raising his cupped hand. ‘Eat this!’
The door was no more substantial than mist. There were Auditors in the workshop, but Susan moved through them like a ghost.
The clock glowed. And, as she ran towards it, it moved away. The floor unrolled in front of her, dragging her back. The clock accelerated towards some distant event horizon. At the same time it grew bigger but became more insubstantial, as if the same amount of clockness was trying to spread itself across more space.
Other things were happening. She blinked, but there was no flicker of darkness.
‘Ah,’ she said to herself, ‘so I’m not seeing with my eyes. And what else? What’s happening to me? My hand … looks normal, but does that mean it is? Am I getting smaller or bigger? Does—?’
‘Are you always like this?’ said the voice of Lobsang.
‘Like what? I can feel your hand and I can hear your voice — at least, I think I can hear it, but maybe it’s just in my head — but I can’t feel myself running—’
‘So … so analytical?’
‘Of course. What am I supposed to be thinking? “Oh, my paws and whiskers”?{23} Anyway, it’s quite straightforward. It’s all metaphorical. My senses are telling me stories because they can’t cope with what is really happening—’
‘Don’t let go of my hand.’
‘It’s all right, I won’t let you go.’
‘I meant, don’t let go of my hand because otherwise every part of your body will be compressed into a space much, much smaller than an atom.’
‘Oh.’
‘And don’t try to imagine what this really looks like from outside. Here comes the cloooccckkkkkkk—’
Mr White’s mouth closed. His expression of surprise became one of horror, and then one of shock, and then one of terrible, wonderful bliss.
He began to unravel. He came apart like a big and complex jigsaw puzzle made of tiny pieces, crumbling gently at the extremities and then vanishing into the air. The last piece to evaporate was the lips, and then they too were gone.